


Plastic Parts

by TheManSings



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-07
Updated: 2014-04-07
Packaged: 2018-01-18 12:13:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1428064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheManSings/pseuds/TheManSings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Ian was a lego set, he'd be a choking hazard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plastic Parts

Phones are supposed to shatter. When you throw them across rooms it’s supposed to be the one thing you can count on. The fall out damage of all the effort you’re putting behind it. Like at least you destroyed the phone, you got something right. You did good kid you got that fucking piece of plastic.

But the phone doesn’t break. The phone never breaks and you’re just an asshole throwing shit around your own house with no one there to get the impact of your life. There are no pieces on the floor, you have nothing to show for yourself.

Mickey stared at the kitchen tiles before lifting a foot and slamming it down onto the receiver. It cracked, just a little.

“What were you expecting?” Mandy stood in the doorway, her eyes looking everywhere except at him. “You can’t call in depressed Mick.”

He kicked at the phone another time. “Yea well they could’ve fucking—“ He threw a hand up only to get caught up in himself. A bite of cuticle, an itchy forehead—“they could’ve at least asked about him.”

“They don’t care.”

“They should.”

“Well they _don’t_.” She pulled back from her own venom. “They don’t even know his real name for christ sakes.”

Mickey watched his sister walk away taking all his last lines with her and effectively cutting off any rebuttal. Cause he wanted to say that this is _exactly_ why you don’t work at random ass clubs dancing half naked for fucking skeezy ass dudes. Or that this is also why people shouldn’t need fucking doctor’s notes for work. Maybe that she should start wearing pants around the goddamn house on too—it was still winter after all.

He kicked the phone again. It still looked pretty much intact.

His bedroom door felt heavier which he knew was fucking stupid. Some cliché metaphor for how everything kinda felt heavier and maybe it was because ‘ _you’re dealing with some heavy shit’_ as everyone liked to remind him lately. How delicately people put grief when they’re too afraid to touch it.

“Ian?” He moved further into the room. “Hey—Ian?” Nothing.

You know when people say talking to a boring person is like watching paint dry? Mickey hates those people. Watching paint dry isn’t a sense of _boring_. It’s all about seeing those little faults in where you painted. How that one crack is definitely going to show and that maybe your fingerprints are actually more prominent than originally thought. Watching paint dry is nerve-racking. And no one ever talks about paint peeling. How the section by the light switch you go to everyday is actually missing something and really has been a different color for the past 3 weeks but it took you until all the lights were off to notice.

The irony gets you every time.

Ian’s eyes are open. His body still wrapped up in the thin sheet Mickey had thought about throwing away a month ago. He’s moved only enough to hide his hands further in the fabric. The moonlight from the window was the only thing letting Mickey see where he was going. His knees hit the bed as he crawled over to the man staring at nothing.

“You think you wanna get up today?” His hands fought with themselves. One inching further away from the other begging _catch me if even can_ just before his other one does. But sometimes he doesn’t, and sometimes his hand gets away from him and his fingers walk along Ian’s skin. Moving up to his hair he always stops—always hearing the tear strained croak of ‘ _stop’_ from Ian.

He never knows who’s burning who anymore. They’re just in flames.

“Ian—“ He ducks his head closer positioning his body to face him straight on. “You gotta get out of bed.”

A tear starts to drip from Ian’s right eye down over his nose and into the left. The first time it scared the shit out of him, but Mickey can’t help but watch the trail of salt and sorrow now. He wonders if it tickles, maybe so much so he needs to wipe it away, but it never seems to bother him.

Suddenly the idea that maybe every motor function had completely ceased in Ian’s body made Mickey want to push him off the bed just to test if he would break his own fall. But phones are what don’t break, not people.

Ian blinks slowly, like maybe he’s going to sleep. Half way there in his head and his body is just trying to catch up.

“I’ve never wanted to break you apart as much as I do now.” Mickey swallowed down the lump forming in his throat. Not the one you talk about when you’re about to cry, the other one. The infection of strain that might be tearing apart your esophagus, the one that leaves you with more to say and no language good enough. Nails on a chalkboard, nails in the throat—that kinda thing. “I would take you apart and you would fucking sit up and help show me what pieces I can throw away.”

“Leave me alone.”

“No.” He fought the urge to rip the sheet from him. “You’d be like a lego set but only for people 7 and older cause you’re a choking hazard. You know that? You’re like a choking hazard.” The lump grew bigger that he actually had to cough. “But I’d beat the shit out of those kids and get the pieces back from them before they swallow you completely and you’d make sure I understood that some pieces only go to the city set and not the batman set. And maybe that’s all I’d need to do. Take the wrong pieces from each set out whatever house you’ve built and it’ll be ok.”

He watched another tear slip down across Ian’s nose. “Ian?”

Nothing. No words, no legos. He could hear the phone ringing. It still worked.

“You wanna get out of bed? Ian?”


End file.
